Dying (With No Apologies to Martha Stewart)

Michael A. Arnzen

If Martha Stewart needs advice on removing pesky bloodstains from the carpet, she finally knows whom to call—but she might want to bring along a little extra muscle. In this gleeful satire of Living magazine, Michael Arnzen turns Stewart’s cheery perfectionism into something almost as horrible….

Dying (With No Apologies to Martha Stewart)

by Michael A. Arnzen

ISBN: 1892391066

Published: 2003

Available Format(s): Chapbook

If Martha Stewart needs advice on removing those pesky bloodstains from the carpet, she finally knows whom to call—but she might want to bring along a little extra muscle. In Dying, a satire of the pop-culture phenomenon Living magazine, Michael Arnzen turns Stewart’s cheery perfectionism into something almost as horrible….

“Unnerving…”
—Publishers Weekly

“As one might hope, Dying whipsaws the reader from giggling to guffawing to cringing, often all on the same page. The thin volume employs 16 sections to offer the sorts of stylish homemaking tips that might have been practiced by the family in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre if only those worthies had sprung from an upscale background.”
—Locus

“Welcome to the barbed brain of Michael Arnzen, where every axon is a steel trap, every dendrite a hidden snare, every synapse a cul de sac, and every myelin sheath an elixir enabling us to find affirmation in ugliness and to smile whenever the dog eats God’s homework.”
—James Morrow, author of Shambling Towards Hiroshima

Michael A. Arnzen is a four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award and an International Horror Guild Award winner. He is the author of several novels, including Grave Markings, The Bitchfight, and Play Dead. Arnzen teaches horror and suspense fiction writing at Seton Hill University.

Praise for Michael Arnzen

“Arnzen comes at you strictly from hunger and somewhere out in left field, to revive lost terms of the Beat Generation. His ideas are outta sight, gonzo, off-the-wall, and rad. There’s no predicting. Do not trust this dude.”
—Karl Edward Wagner, author of the Kane series

“Arnzen is disturbingly, madly, brilliant, and I pray for those close to him.”
—Ryan Mecum, author of Zombie Haiku